Awake my Soul, Awake my Tongue
by Eleantris
Summary: Out of tragedy, arises hope. Out of death, comes new life. Alex just wants to go home, and Gene isn't sure where home is, yet somehow, one Christmas, they manage to find a semblance of it in each other.
1. Part 1

_**Hello! So it might be a little early to start posting Christmas fics, but I think this one is going to be about three or four chapters in all, so I decided it was best to get the first chapter posted up around now. The title is the title of a traditional Christmas hymn, but the story has nothing to do with it really…I just liked the title. :) So…nothing more to say really, except enjoy, and Merry Christmas! **_

_**P.S – Request from me in advance: Please don't kill me. :P**_

_**Eleantris :)**_

_**Disclaimer – I don't own Ashes to Ashes, or A Christmas Carol, which is referenced here. :)**_

_**Awake my Soul, Awake my Tongue – Part One**_

* * *

"_Gene_!"

The almost inhuman shriek echoes about the abandoned warehouse, slamming into the concrete walls and reverberating back into her ears. It takes Alex a split second to realise that the yell came from her, and then everything is happening too quickly.

A shot is fired – louder than her scream – and it bursts through her eardrums. She watches with wide eyes as Gene dives, and she feels a pair of strong arms – Ray's, she registers, somewhere in the back of her mind – wrap around her torso, holding her back. But she's trying to surge forwards, screaming, and all she can feel is the gunshot echoing in her mind, over and over again to the rhythm of her pounding heartbeat.

Bammo has Slater, is pushing him against the wall, grinding his jaw into the gritty surface as he claps the cuffs on him none too gently.

Slater's gun is on the floor, still smoking, and Alex's nerves are alight and scorching themselves into tethers as a cacophony of sound clatters in her ears. She can't register anything quick enough. Slater – the killer – arrested, Ray still holding her back, Gene on the floor, black Crombie coat covered in dust, but he's moving… the still echoing shot of a gun.

And then she sees her. Fourteen year old Marie Tilsley, eyes wide in shock, slumped helplessly in the corner, trying with a feeble hand to stem the flow of blood from her gut. Her chest is pulsating, gargling in breaths, and now a trickle of blood is slipping from the corner of her mouth. Alex vaguely registers Chris and Shaz rushing towards her with some of the others, shouts for an ambulance, Gene getting up, radioing to the station. She catches his string of swearwords, his desperate eyes as he glances at Marie. And still Ray is constraining her, struggling as she struggles back, not thinking.

"Let me go!"

"Ma'am – "

"Let me _go_, Carling!"

She wrestles free of his arms, strong as they are, and almost stumbles towards the figure of the bleeding teenager on the floor. Her face, so young, is slumping along with the rest of her body, and Alex feels the bile fighting to surge back up her windpipe. Her eyelids are fluttering, fighting, and she sees Gene pumping up and down on her chest, Chris trying to stem the flow of blood with his, _Shaz's_, denim jacket, and Gene's desperate pleas, the orders to _stay with me_, the _no you don't_, and then Marie's feeble - "I promised…"

And then her eyes are closed, and Alex is too late, as though she could have somehow prevented it from happening if she had just got there sooner. Marie Tilsley's eyes flutter to a close, her chest stops jumping; her body goes limp in Gene's arms. And all Alex can do is fall to her knees as if in prayer, crawling towards her body, tears streaming down her face until they fall to mix with the blood on the floor. Salt and iron. Rust. Decay.

So much blood. So much life. So much death. So much youth and so much beauty.

Wasted.

For a moment, staring at Marie's lifeless face, she almost wishes the bullet _had_ hit Gene instead. She hates herself for the thought as soon as it flickers in her mind. Not Gene. Never Gene. He can't leave her. He can't die. Can he?

Alex is drowning in a river of red, of dirt and grime and the lifeblood of a young body that should never have been there in the first place. She hears sirens, the wailing of an ambulance. Too late, she thinks bitterly. Slater has been bundled off into a police car, and she hasn't even the heart to ensure that Bammo keeps him in one piece. He can pound the bastard to a pulp for all Alex cares now.

She doesn't know what to do, what she can do. All she can feel is the skin under her hands, damp and warm with blood. All she can do is clutch Marie Tilsley's lifeless hand and whisper apologies over and over again, a syllable for every tear.

_I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry_.

She sees Marie's parents in her mind's eye – Mr Tilsley's horn-rimmed glasses, his wife's trembling lip and manicured nails, torn to shreds with the worry. A deep crease in her forehead that will never be smoothed away now.

"Bols, Bolly…C'mon…Come away…"

She can feel Gene's hand on her shoulder, trying to coax her back, pulling her away. She clutches the dead hand in hers tighter.

Gene moves his arm around her waist, his mouth by her ear, forehead against her temple. "Alex, _please_."

He sounds so broken, so desperate that she relents, and allows him to pull her away to let the paramedics in.

Hardly thinking, she turns to bury her face in Gene's neck, and when a sob escapes her, he just holds her closer. He is clutching her as tightly as she is clutching him, two lifelines intertweined, and she hears him murmur to her, over and over again.

"_Shhh…_I'm sorry, love… I'm so sorry…my fault…my fucking fault…"

And if it's true, that a policeman bears the weight of each soul they see lost whilst on duty upon their shoulders, Alex thinks that theirs must be a heavy burden to bear. For a moment she sees the shackles of Jacob Marley winding themselves around her ankles and around Gene's wrists, hears the strike of Big Ben in the distance, and feels the guilt tearing its way like a whirlwind through her veins.

No parent should ever have to lose a child. But on Christmas Eve?

She sobs into Gene's shoulder as snow begins to fall outside the warehouse. White, pure, unclean and untainted. Alex feels anything but.

* * *

She shouldn't have been there.

She should have been at home, listening to _Slade_, decorating the tree with her parents, kissing some boy under the mistletoe at a party she'd been told she wasn't allowed to attend, wrapping last-minute presents for her friends… Anything but there in that warehouse.

She should have gone to bed that night, pretending not to be excited for the morning – because she was fourteen and far too old for that – but secretly anticipating her presents, the turkey, the look on her Mum's face when she opened the bracelet she and her Dad bought for her together. She should have been at home to see the first snowflake fall, to run outside with the dog and try to catch more on her tongue. She shouldn't have been bleeding out onto concrete, surrounded by strangers, as all those snowflakes fell to the ground, uncaught.

She shouldn't have been there.

Alex stares down into her wine, wishing she could drown in it, and wanting to scream something. Anything. There are diners in, enjoying their Christmas Eve, talking jovially with Luigi, clinking their glasses and admiring the tinsel strewn everywhere, oblivious to the sombre-faced group of detectives nursing their drinks in the corner.

They shouldn't be happy, she thinks, almost viciously as she slams down her glass and feels the pinpricks of tears in her eyes again.

Don't they know? Don't they _see_?

But that's the problem. They don't know. They don't see.

They don't know that there is now a family gathered around their Christmas tree, no longer anticipating the morning. They don't know how someone's little girl lost her life tonight, at the hands of a man who never even knew her, who got it wrong.

Alex wants to scream at the injustice of it all. She wants to go outside, turn her face to the invisible stars and the falling snow and _scream_ at how unfair it is. She wants to feel the sting of freezing wind on her face and just one tenth of the pain and confusion and devastation Marie must have felt in her last few seconds on Earth.

_I promised. _

Those had been her last words. The words of a dying girl, taking her last breath too soon. Decades too soon.

Alex feels the iron lump form in her throat, rough and gritty, scratching her flesh, blocking her windpipe. Good. She doesn't deserve the flow of oxygen, the exchange of gases that keep her cells alive.

She wonders what Marie meant. What had she promised? What had she said she would do?

Alex imagines it was something small, the sort of detail that only means something when you're dying. She knows her last thought as Layton's bullet penetrated her brain was _candles_. She had promised to blow out the candles with Molly. She never got to keep her promise either.

She thinks that maybe Marie had promised to hang up the stockings with her Mum, to help her Dad defrost the turkey. Perhaps she was going to take the dog for a walk, or tidy her room before Santa came.

She never would.

Alex reaches for the near-empty bottle of wine at her elbow, and fills her glass back up to the brim. Gene glances at her, but says nothing. He only takes the now empty bottle, goes up to the bar, and fetches a new one.

They say nothing to each other. Because there is nothing to say. That morning, Marie Tilsley was alive. Tonight, she is dead.

And all either of them can hear is the dreaded whisper of convicted guilt: _my fault…my fault…my fault…my fucking fault_.

* * *

_**Just a bit of a grim start… Those of you who follow me on Tumblr will know I've been warning that my Galex Christmas fic this year would be a little darker than my previous ones though. I hope you're still interested to read more though, and please review!**_

_**Eleantris :)**_


	2. Part 2

_**Thank you all so much for your encouraging reviews! I was worried some of you might not be interested in a Christmas fic that started off so glumly, so I'm really grateful for you sticking around. :) Anyway, Christmas Eve is almost upon us, so I guessed it was definitely time for the next chapter! Hope you enjoy it. **_

_**Eleantris :)**_

_**Disclaimer – I don't own Ashes to Ashes, I'm afraid.**_

_**Awake my Soul, Awake my Tongue – Part Two**_

* * *

"Do you know what we are, Gene?" Alex asks, wrist slack as she circles her near empty wine glass around in the air. Her eyes are unfocused as she looks at him, and the clear-cut edge of her voice has slipped into a soft slur. She's pissed, he thinks as he looks at her, but then again he isn't too far behind.

"No, Bols. And I'm not sure I care t' know either." He tries to reach for the glass that she's in danger of dropping, but she just snatches her hand away from his, almost unbalancing herself in her seat. "Come on, love. Give me the glass. You've 'ad enough."

She doesn't appear to have heard him, but slams the glass down on the well-worn table anyway, marked as it is with chips and dark rings of wine spilt over the years, soaked into the wood like blood.

"We're nobodies," she tells him, and her voice would sound matter-of-fact if it weren't for the drunken slide of her tongue over teeth and the laziness in her tone as she tries and fails to pin him down with her stare. It is too hazy to have any strength.

"Nobodies, that's what we are… We don't matter, Gene…not to anyone or anything. We're pebbles on the beach, grains of sand to be washed up and then away."

Her S's are too long, and her vowels are clumsy. Gene chooses to ignore her and casts a grim glance around Luigi's. It's almost empty, and the rest of the team left hours ago. Luigi would like them to leave too, he realises, as he catches the tired Italian man watching them from behind the bar. It's Christmas Eve; he should be with his family, not babysitting two washed-up coppers who failed to keep a little girl alive. The guilt poisons him again then, uncoiling in his stomach to rear up and sink its teeth in where it hurts.

He turns back to Alex with a long sigh. "Come on, Bolly. Let's get you upstairs."

Some unintelligible mumble stumbles its way from between her lips, but he ignores her, pulling her to her feet even as she protests. He has to all but haul her up the stairs, and he isn't even in the mood to cop a sneaky feel as she falls against him more than once. He's tired, she's pissed, and somehow not even the magic of the snow falling outside on Christmas Eve can relieve the pain in his chest and the ache in his bones.

* * *

Gene manages to get Alex into the flat, and he is just about to turn and make his way out when a surprisingly strong hand grasps his shirt, holding him in place. He looks down at her fingers first, white with the effort of clinging onto him, and then at her face. Her eyes are hazy now not only with intoxication, but also with tears, fear, and a million other emotions he never wants to see in their amber depths again. When she speaks, her words are desperate whispers, and they wrench on his heart.

"_Gene_…please don't leave me, I c-can't…I can't be alone, not tonight…Pl-please… _Stay_."

He can smell the odour of too much wine on her breath, and beneath it, there's the fetid scent of grime and death from the warehouse that he is sure must haunt his own clothes too. Yet he meets her gaze, and finds something there that he cannot deny.

"Okay, Bols," he says quietly, covering the hand that grips his shirt with his own, trying to prise her fingers away. "I'll stay."

Her face melts into a tearful, fragile smile at that, and she moves her hand to lightly brush back the hair from his face. Gene can't help but briefly close his eyes as her fingertips caress his skin, pausing at his temples to feel the subtle beat of his pulse there. In any other circumstances, in any other life and any other world, for Alex Drake to touch him like this… He would be in heaven. But now it feels wrong.

It feels like a desperate attempt to be anchored to something, to find something real to cling onto. It feels like grief and guilt and shallow emptiness, and it causes the air to clog in his throat.

"Alex, love. Don't," he whispers, opening his eyes to see her gazing at him, closer than she was before. He reaches to remove her hand from his face, and tries not to see the hurt and rejection that sinks into her expression as he does so. "Just…don't."

"Gene, I…" She is swaying slightly where she stands, and he wants to move her to the couch, but there's something in the mournful expression of her eyes that stops him from moving. "Don't you want me?"

Her voice cracks as she asks the question, and Gene wants nothing more than to take her pain, her misery and her remorse and absorb it into himself so that she won't have to feel it, so she won't look at him like that. So she won't cry. He can't stand it when she cries. He wants to slowly extract all the darkness that tortures her mind, and let it lurk in his own shadow, because it pains him more than he would like to admit to see her so defeated. Today wasn't her fault. If anyone is to blame tonight, for anything, it is him.

He meets her gaze and shakes his head softly. "Not like this, Bols. Not tonight."

"_Please_, Gene."

She takes a step forward, a tear rolling down her cheek, streaked black with mascara, and she looks so ruined, so fragile, that he reaches out to hold her shoulders gently, scared she might break if she has to stand alone for a second longer. She reaches out to touch his face again, and this time he can't stop her.

He can feel the momentum inside him, the feeling of flooring the accelerator pedal just as you realise it's a dead end street, the inexplicable urge to jump from a height, the upcoming but inevitable disaster of hitting the floor, or the wall, and losing everything you have. He is powerless to stop it.

Alex's lips meet his clumsily, and the kiss is a hungry clash of teeth and tongues and lips. She moves her mouth almost ferociously over his as he fails to respond. All these months, he has dreamt of kissing Alex Drake, and now, he can do nothing but wait for it to be over. She tastes of alcohol and despair, and it's like he can almost _feel_ the desperation in the way she kisses him, willing him to kiss her back, daring him to take it further. She is clinging to him now, body collapsed against him, and he can feel the saltwater stickiness of her tears against his cheeks.

She pulls back from him, breathing ragged, and if anything looks more broken than before.

"Gene – " Her voice is cracked by a sob, and then she's crying on his shoulder, heaving in breaths and fighting to stop the tears from streaming down her face and onto his shirt. Her body shakes in his arms as he pulls her closer, cradling her the way one does a small child.

"Bols, it's alright. Come on, love, it's alright. Don't cry, I'm… I'm so sorry, Alex…" He murmurs this to her, over and over again, and stares over the top of her head out of the window, wishing, unknowingly, for a miracle.

Outside, snowflakes are still drifting down from the heavens, and the orange glow of a streetlamp illuminates a small portion of rooftop to him, where he can see the frosty coating, glistening in the artificial light. After a while he feels Alex's body begin to relax in his arms, her sobs growing quieter until all he can hear is the occasional sniffle, and he feels her begin to shift against him.

She draws back, wavers a little, and brings a shaky, damp hand up to her mouth. "I…I think I'm-I'm going to be sick…"

* * *

He gets her to the kitchen sink just in time, and holds her hair back as the sound of her vomiting mixes with more sobs, and all he wants is for this night to be over, or for it to never have happened. To see her slumped over the sink in this way, crying as her stomach tries to purge itself of all the poison she has subjected it to, doesn't just pull on his heartstrings. It tears them savagely from beneath his ribcage, and they snag and bleed on his bones on the way out and for a moment, he wants to be sick as well.

His fingers are knotting in her hair as he holds it back away from her face, and he is hard-pressed to remember a Christmas Eve as horrible as this. None of them, not even those where his father's beatings were especially bad, not even the year he was knocked out cold for daring to suggest they invite old Mrs Bowen for Christmas Dinner the next day, whose husband had died recently and who would be spending Christmas alone that year, could compare to this.

There is something revolting in the way even the most brilliant of human beings can regress to this, given the right circumstances. He has never thought it would happen to Alex. She's strong, determined – the only woman stronger than her that he has ever known is his mother. He has never thought he would see such ruin and desperation in Alex's eyes, has never thought that he'd be holding her hair back as she is sick, over and over again, until her stomach is empty and her eyes run dry. He stands there silently as she heaves up the last contents of her stomach, feeling her entire body wrack and convulse in his arms, and then go still as she slumps completely over the sink, only moving her hand to turn the tap on with a moan.

* * *

When it's over, Gene wets a towel, lowers Alex down onto a chair and gently wipes her face, brushing away the remnants of her tears with his thumb, trailing over the track marks of mascara and eyeliner that refuse to be washed away. She stares back at him, her gaze bereft as he sets the towel down next to her and turns to clean the sink quickly.

When he turns back to her, she's crying again, silently this time as she stares straight ahead, unseeing, tears trickling tragically down her face, leaving blotches. She looks so broken, so empty, that for a moment, Gene has no clue what to do next. What can he say or do to make her feel better?

She is a mother – a mother who has lost a daughter herself. There is no way on Earth that he can ease the pain that Marie Tilsley's death has caused. Not to mention the pain that he, through his rejection, through his stoic response to her kiss, has inflicted.

After a long moment, Gene sighs and moves to wrap a strong arm around Alex's waist, pulling her to her feet. She's still under the influence, swaying in his arms and muttering unintelligibly as he tries to keep her upright. "Come on, Alex," he says quietly, guiding her out of the kitchen and through to the bathroom, "You just need to sleep, love, that's all."

Alex only manages to regain the power of speech as Gene sets her down gently to sit on the edge of the bath, close to the sink, but her words are shaky and vague, as though she's speaking to him from down a long tunnel and through a wall of static.

"Wh-what are you doing, Gene?"

He glances back at her as he removes the cap from her toothpaste. "Looking after you," he says, sighing sadly. "Someone's got to, Bols."

She is slipping from her perch on the edge of the bath and he catches her just in time, propping her up against him as he pushes the errant, knotted curls back from her face. He brushes her teeth for her, trying to scrub away the stale taste of vomit and alcohol from her mouth as though that will somehow erase everything else as well. She spits clumsily when he guides her to the sink, and he can feel her body going slack in his arms as she runs out of energy.

* * *

"Just small sips, Bols…Then you can go t' bed."

In the dim light of the bathroom, he watches as she takes tiny, reluctant sips from the glass of water he is holding to her lips. Her eyelids are drooping over hazy, watery eyes, and all he wants is to smooth away every line of pain and worry from her face. He hopes that sleep will do that.

"Tha…Tha's enough, Gene," she eventually mumbles, turning her head away from the glass and slumping sideways towards him. "…M'tired…want to sleep… I want to go _home_…"

Sighing, he brushes the hair back from her face again. "You are home, Bols," he murmurs as he gathers her into his arms.

He carries her to the bed, setting her down gently and taking off her boots before pulling the duvet up over her. She's already asleep. He presses the briefest of kisses to her forehead, letting his lips linger there only a moment before drawing back.

For a while Gene just stares down at her, wondering why even the strongest people have to have weaknesses, and why even the most beautiful things have flaws.

* * *

_**I realise this is possibly an even more miserable chapter than the last one, but happier, nicer things will start to happen next chapter, I promise. :) Please let me know your thoughts though, and I hope you enjoy your Christmas!**_

_**Eleantris :)**_


	3. Part 3

_**Hello again! I hope you all had an absolutely wonderful Christmas, and Happy New Year! Thank you so much for your reviews. Here's the next chapter (less angst this time…I think :P), enjoy!**_

_**Eleantris :)**_

_**Disclaimer – Nope, Santa did not bring me Ashes to Ashes, so it still belongs to Kudos, the BBC, etc, etc. **_

_**Awake my Soul, Awake my Tongue – Part Three**_

* * *

By the time the winter sunshine is straining weakly to shine through the bedroom window, Alex's head feels, not for the first time since she arrived in this world, as though it really does have a bullet in it.

A pulse is beating on her brain, sharp and fierce, and there's an incessant pounding beneath it that feels as if it is intent on reverberating through every one of her neurons and synapses, vibrating through her skull. Her mouth is dry, eyes groggy and limbs slow to respond when she tries to move. Groaning, she attempts to open her eyes, fighting against the dried saltwater dampness of tears and clumped remnants of mascara to cast her bleary-eyed gaze about the room.

It takes her a few minutes to realise that she is still in her clothes, but someone must have removed her boots, because they're neatly set down in front of her dresser, side by side the way she used to arrange Molly's shoes by the front door when she was little. Outside, it has stopped snowing, but she can see glistening white and sparkling frost for miles towards the horizon when she sits up to see out of the window.

Christmas morning. Peace, happiness, thankfulness… Were they not all emotions people are supposed to feel on Christmas morning? Alex isn't sure anymore. She can't feel them.

Instead there is a blankness inside of her that seems to leave her void of any kind of overwhelming emotion, and there is an even more profound blankness in her head. What happened last night?

She can't remember coming to bed, or even making her way up the stairs to her flat.

For a moment, Alex tries to take a deep breath, close her eyes and remember. She tries to retrace her motions from the warehouse, and then it comes to her in blurs and slurred words. Her memories are fragmented and too bright – a kaleidoscope twisting and turning in her mind's eye, too fast and too varied to make much sense.

She remembers a strong arm around her waist – once, twice… maybe three times… All different. She remembers a stormy look and blurs of red, black and grey. Pale orange against stainless steel, the stench of vomit, the stickiness of tears against her cheeks. She remembers the soft tone of words spoken in her ear, meant to be soothing, she thinks, but she can't remember the words themselves. She remembers warm hands on her face, a kind look and a tired sigh. But everything blurs into one huge mess that she can't decipher – each tiny snapshot of memory forms a tile of the mosaic, but they haven't been set down in order, and the stonework looks shoddy and unorganised as it crumbles at the edges.

Alex's eyes fly open again as she suddenly hears the sound of movement at her side, and the gentle thud of something being placed on her bedroom table.

Gene is there, looking at her almost warily, but there's an essence of kindness in his eyes that she can't mistake. "Thought you might be needing a cuppa," he says, and nods to her bedside table.

She looks and sees the steaming mug of tea he's placed there, and unwittingly, a small smile struggles its way onto her face. She looks back up at him, and just stares for a few seconds.

_Gene_.

Of course.

His was the arm she remembers around her waist, the stormy look was in his eyes and the murmured words must have come from him. She vaguely remembers it being his thumb that wiped the tears away from her cheeks, his kind look and tired sigh.

"Gene," she breathes, for a moment still caught between the present and the past, the world of waking and dreaming. "You stayed."

Gene seems uncomfortable as he shuffles his feet, but maintains eye contact. "Course I did, Bols. Had t' make sure you were alright."

"What…" She brings a hand up to her face, rubbing at her eyes for a moment and trying to push her hair back out of the way. It's knotted and greasy and in need of a wash. She must look a state. She wonders what he must think of her now. "What happened?"

He lets out a sigh that echoes somewhere in her memory and lowers himself to sit at the bottom of her bed, body angled away from her, but head turned so his gaze meets hers.

"You got pissed, Bols… You threw up, I tried to clean yer up best I could, and got you t' bed. I should 'ave realised you were drinking too much – more than usual. I'm sorry."

She blinks at him, stunned. "You… Don't be sorry, Gene. It's my fault. It's not your job to look after me…" She trails off as the full implications of what he is saying sink in, and a tidal wave of shame washes through her, sending tears surging to her eyes, stinging in her irises to be released.

Her gaze trails away too, dropping down slowly to the duvet strewn over her lap, bunched around her from where she's pulled herself into a sitting position.

"I was…_sick_…" The look that twists onto her face is one of pure contempt, and she glances up at Gene with tears in her eyes. "I'm so sorry, Gene…. What must you think of me, I… I lost control. I'm a mess, I didn't mean…" She shakes her head, trying desperately to order her thoughts into words. "What I'm trying to say is… thank you… If you hadn't been there, who knows what I…"

She can feel the tears coming, pushing against her weakened defences, and she squeezes her eyes tight shut against them – draws her knees up, buries her head there.

"Oh God… I just feel so _stupid_…"

And she does. Grown women don't get so drunk that they throw up, not women like her anyway. She's meant to be strong, independent and wise to the ways of the world. She shouldn't have let Marie Tilsley's death affect her so much. Teenagers drink themselves into oblivion and end the night throwing up in the kitchen sink. Not her.

She lifts her head slowly to look at Gene, though his expression is blurred slightly by the moisture in her eyes. His tie is gone and shirt crumpled, but he doesn't look half as tired as she feels.

"I'm so sorry, Gene," she whispers, feeling a few more tears leak from her eyes. "I'm so sorry."

Inside him, Gene feels alarm growing. He shifts closer to her, extends a hand towards her, then withdraws it again, not knowing quite what to do.

"Bols, it's alright. Bolly, don't – " He sighs as she chokes on a quiet sob and gets up, sitting back down again next to her. This is so much harder to do when she's sober. He puts his arms around her just as he did last night, pulls her head to his shoulder and holds her there, fingers stroking absently through her hair. "Don't cry, Alex… Can't stand it when yer cry."

She pulls out of his embrace a few moments later, bringing a hand up to quickly swipe the tears from her face. She gazes at him with watery, sorrowful eyes.

"I'm sorry, Gene… I'm a mess, sorry. I'll… I'll stop crying now, I promise." She tries to laugh, but it comes out shaky and shallow, and a few more tears escape with it.

He rolls his eyes and just pulls her closer again, pressing his lips to the top of her head without thinking. Her hair has lost the usual citrusy, floral scent that tortures him on a daily basis, yet he doesn't care.

"Stop apologising, yer daft mare. You needed me, and I was there. Come on, Bols, pull yerself together."

She pulls away to look up at him again, biting down nervously on her lower lip. Her expression reminds Gene of a small, worried child, and he lets his arms fall from around her.

"Why are you so good to me, Gene?" she asks, and her voice isn't even a whisper – the words are exhalations of air, carrying on her breath, subtle and timid.

After a pause, he sighs and reaches out to tuck her hair behind her ears again. His thumb lingers by her jaw, just ghosting the line of it lightly. Her teeth slowly release her lower lip and her gaze widens. Last night he wanted to absorb all of her pain into his own shadow, to take the hurt from her eyes and the weight from her back and shoulder it all himself, just to stop her from feeling it. Now, he wants to kiss that pain and hurt away, until neither of them can feel it anymore.

"Because you're not good enough to yourself, Alex. That's why."

He cups her jaw then with his hand and leans forward – for a brief, fleeting moment, Alex thinks he is about to kiss her, and a roaring battle erupts inside her as to whether to let him or not; it lasts all of a split second, before he moves to press his lips to her forehead instead.

She leans in to the gesture, bowing her head slightly as if in prayer as she feels his lips linger on her forehead, warm and comforting. It feels somehow like a blessing, an absolution of her sins. A fresh start. Her eyes close; she is breathing him in, and she finds herself thanking whichever deity gave her Gene Hunt.

"Have a bath, get yourself cleaned up, Bols," he tells her quietly, but firmly. "I'll see if I can scavenge any food from Luigi, and we'll 'ave Christmas dinner, eh?" He moves back to sit a more appropriate distance from her on the bed, his hand falling down and away from her face. She mourns the loss of contact immediately, the pulse in his fingertips against her skin.

"Unless, you'd err… Unless you'd rather be alone? Because that's fine too, I'll just, ah, see myself out."

Alex's eyes widen in alarm. "No," she says quickly, shaking her head and then, seeing his amusement at her sudden response, she smiles a little shyly. "No," she repeats, her voice quieter and calmer this time. "I want you to stay, and have dinner with me. I'd… I'd really like that, Gene. Very much."

She expects him to make some kind of sarcastic or smutty comment – a joke to cover up the strangeness, yet familiarity, in the intimacy that has somehow grown, so quickly, yet seemingly so naturally, between them in the space of the last few hours. Perhaps, Alex thinks, when he wrapped an arm around her back in the warehouse and pressed his forehead to her temple, pleading with her to move, something inside both of them had been awakened. It is often the case, she realises, that the most beautiful things arise from the most horrible of situations.

But Gene's next words are not sarcastic, or smutty, or even remotely suggestive in any way.

Instead he nods, squeezes her hand before standing up and pauses to look at her before moving towards the door. And then, so subtle that at first Alex doesn't quite catch it, a vague smile lifts the corners of his lips.

"Okay," he says, and there's a look in the stormy blue of his eyes as he says it that she can't decipher, but that somehow tells her that everything it going to be okay, and she is sure that she's never heard a more beautiful word come from his lips.

* * *

_**I promised you happier things in this chapter – I hope I delivered! Just one more instalment to come, which I hope to have posted before I return to school on the 7**__**th**__**. Thank you for reading, and please let me know your thoughts! And again, a very Happy New Year to you all!**_

_**Eleantris :)**_


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